MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Hallway (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

In 2011, a young woman opened the door to her place of work, a sporting apparel store in Washington DC, and immediately realized something was wrong. Too afraid to investigate what she saw and heard, she ran from the store and called 911. When police arrived and entered the store, they heard a sound coming from a hallway in the back, and they began to move toward it…For 100s more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's story starts like many other true crime stories. However, this one comes with a very unexpected twist at the end. One that is exceptionally brutal and graphic. As such, viewer discretion is advised. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come

to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please deliver a box of Girl Scout cookies to the five-star review button, but before you hand them over, eat them all and replace them with stale saltines. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right, it's stone-cold

icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all, but behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the

first ever round-the-world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say, but Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round the world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Okay, let's get into today's story.

Brittany Norwood was born in 1982 in Federal Way, Washington, which is a small city located about 20 miles south of Seattle. Growing up, Brittany's family never had much money. Her father, who was the primary breadwinner, ran a small upholstery shop in town. And while he worked tirelessly, he barely earned enough money to make ends meet. And considering how large Brittany's family was, she was one of nine siblings, the lack of financial resources at times made life very challenging. However, Brittany's parents were not complainers, and they instilled in all of their children the importance of hard work regardless of circumstance. And clearly that message resonated with their children because by the time Brittany was a teenager, her older siblings had already

gone on to become doctors, engineers, and management consultants. As for Brittany, she was just as ambitious as her older siblings, but her interests were in athletics. By the time she was in high school, she had become one of the very best soccer players in the entire state of Washington. She was so good, in fact, that by her senior year of high school in 2000, the best college soccer programs in America were actively recruiting her. She would finally settle on attending Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York, because they offered her a fantastic scholarship and they were known for their excellent soccer program. Brittany was incredibly proud of her scholarship. It not only represented the hard work pays off motto that her parents had preached all of her life, but it also lifted a serious financial burden off of her

parents. So in the fall of 2000, Britney left Washington state and headed east to New York to begin her collegiate career. But right away, she struggled. Britney had never left home before, and now she was suddenly 3,000 miles away from her family and her friends and she missed them terribly. Within the first few days of being at her new school, she called her family and told them how much she missed them and how she kind of regretted coming to New York in the first place, but they reassured her that she had made the right choice, that these feelings were normal, and she just needed to give it some time. But despite taking her family's advice and sticking it out at Stony Brook,

Brittany never really felt like she belonged there. She made friends, she got good grades, and performed well on the soccer team. But with every passing semester, Brittany became less and less connected to the school and the people there and just longed to be home. connected to the school and the people there, and just longed to be home. And so with that in mind, in 2003, so three years after she had arrived at Stony Brook, Brittany was at her school feeling down about her situation when she had a serious lapse in judgment. Brittany, who had never gotten in trouble in her life before, randomly stole one of her teammates' things out of their locker. She didn't even know why she did it. It just kind of happened and then pretty much immediately she got caught.

And as soon as she was, she returned what she had taken. She felt horrible and she apologized, but the damage was done. The incident had already been reported to the school and the school had a very strict code of conduct policy, which theft was in clear violation of. And so Brittany had her scholarship revoked. And without it, her family could no longer afford the school. And so she had to come back home. And when she got home, she felt like she had let her entire family down. And so for the next several years, the shadow of this huge mistake loomed over her

like a dark cloud. She just kind of kept her head down and took part-time work here and there, but for the most part, while she was home, she was just sad and directionless. But finally, in 2010, so seven years after coming home from school, when Brittany was now 28 years old, she decided enough was enough.

She was going to stop letting this mistake define her life. She was going to go out and find a career and make something of her life like her other siblings had. And the career move that seemed to make the most sense to her was becoming a personal trainer. Despite not playing soccer anymore, fitness was still a very big part of her life, and she loved the idea of helping other people get fit and stay fit. And so she began looking at where personal trainers were the most in demand, and she found Washington, D.C. was a total hotspot. And it just so happened two of her siblings were already living there. And so that year, she packed up her stuff and she headed out to D.C. as well.

When she got there, she had a little cash, but not enough to sustain her longer than a month or two. So she applied for and got a job with a Lululemon shop. she got there, she had a little cash, but not enough to sustain her longer than a month or two, so she applied for and got a job with a Lululemon shop. Lululemon is a company that sells yoga athletic apparel. The shop was located in Bethesda, which is a very wealthy suburb of Washington DC, and right around the corner from the shop was a gym that Brittany immediately fell in love with and decided would be the perfect gym for her to run her personal training practice out of once she got certified. So a very happy and rejuvenated Brittany began work at the Lululemon shop in Bethesda in late 2010, fully expecting to only be there for a few months before she transitioned to her personal training career. At around the same time Brittany began working at the store, another young woman had started working there as well. Her name was Jaina Murray, and she was quite

similar to Brittany. She was 30, so two years older than Brittany, and she had been raised in a close-knit, modest household in Texas, where her parents had preached always working hard and doing the right thing, and she really took that to heart. And like Brittany, Jaina was also a star high school athlete, except instead of playing soccer, she was a big track and field star, and actually she set some records in Texas for the discus throw. But after graduating high school, instead of pursuing athletics in college, Jaina had pursued business. She enrolled in the business program at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. After she graduated, she worked in the private sector for a few years before deciding it made sense for her to go back to

school to earn her master's degree in business. She was accepted to the very prestigious Johns Hopkins Business School, which was located a few miles from the Lululemon shop where Brittany worked. And by 2010, Jaina was in her final semester and all she had left to complete was a final thesis paper. A thesis is a long essay involving personal research. The assignment was to write about the structure of a company of her choosing. And since Jaina was a huge fan of Lululemon apparel, she had decided to write about them. And during her research on Lululemon,

she discovered that the company was far more than just clothing. They had what seemed to be a really cool company culture. All employees, no matter how junior, were encouraged to pursue whatever goals they had, even if their goals meant leaving Lululemon at some point. It was like the company fundamentally cared more about their people than their product. And Jaina loved that. And so as she's writing this paper, on a whim, she decides to go get a job at a Lululemon store. And the nearest location was the one near her school. Jaina figured working at the shop would only make it easier to finish her thesis since it would provide her boots on the ground information. Also, she just wanted to see for herself

if this company was as amazing as it seemed to be. And so her plan was just to work at this shop until her thesis was done, at which point she'd earn her master's and more than likely she would quit and move on with her life. So in late 2010, when Brittany and Jaina found themselves working at the same

Lululemon shop in Bethesda, they were aware of each other, but really didn't know each other. Their only interactions were when their shifts happened to overlap, which did not happen very often. But when it did, they were perfectly nice to each other. They would chit chat, but they were co-workers, not really friends. However, a terrifying event was about to link them together forever. On the evening of March 11th, 2011, Jaina and Brittany were working together at the Lululemon. It was an uneventful shift. They chatted, they helped customers, and in between all of that, they would knock out

whatever closing duties they were responsible for so that when closing time came, they could leave quickly. And then when it was closing time at 8 p.m., the pair did one last sweep of the store to make sure everything was neat and put away and locked, and then they both grabbed their things and headed out the front door. Once they were outside, Jaina turned around and she pulled the keys out of her pocket and she locked the front door, and then Jaina hopped in her car and she drove off, and Brittany, she turned and began walking down the sidewalk toward the metro train station.

But after only a few minutes of walking, Brittany swung her backpack off of her shoulder right in front of her and she reached inside to fish around for her wallet because her metro train pass was inside of her wallet. And so she's fishing around her bag, she's still walking towards the train and she can't find it. And so she comes to a full stop, she unzips her bag completely and she looks inside and her wallet is not in there. And as soon as she sees that it's And so she comes to a full stop, she unzips her bag completely, and she looks inside, and her wallet is not in there. And as soon as she sees that it's missing, she remembers she left it on the break room table at the Lululemon store. And the only way she could go back and get her wallet was if Jaina came back with the keys and unlocked the front door. And so Brittany just stood there for a minute wondering what she should do. She kind of felt bad about calling Jaina to drive back and open the store for her, but she really needed her wallet for a whole bunch of reasons. And so finally, she picks up her cell phone and she calls Jaina.

And when Jaina picks up, Brittany says, you know, I'm really sorry, but I left my wallet in the store. Would you mind coming back and just opening the doors for me? I'll run in and I'll get it. Be super quick. And Jaina, surprisingly, was totally fine with this. She actually laughed and said, you know, I left my laptop in the break room and I was going to get it tomorrow, but this is an excuse to go back and get it now. And so Jaina told Brittany she would be back at the front of the store in just a couple of minutes. And so Brittany thanked her. They hung up the phone and then Brittany turned and she began running back towards Lululemon. When Brittany arrived at the front of the store, Jaina was already there, and Brittany immediately said,

I'm so sorry, thank you so much for coming back. And Jaina said, really, it's no big deal. And then Jaina pulled her key out, and she opened the front door of the store, and they stepped inside. The layout of the store was basically just a big square, where the front door entered the square right in the middle of it.

So you step inside, you're in this kind of main shopping area. It's just this one square. And then all the way at the back, kind of lined up with the front door, behind the cash registers, was this employee-only hallway that went straight back about seven or eight feet. And then it reached this T intersection, where if you turned left, there would be another hallway that went straight for maybe 10 or 15 feet,

and it would come to a dead end at a door, and that door would lead to a bathroom. And then if you were standing in front of that bathroom door and looked left, there would be another door that led into a very small kitchen. And then if you went back to the T intersection and turned right and looked straight ahead, you would see another stretch of hallway that was about 10 or 15 feet long, and it would look exactly like the left hallway, except at the end of the right hallway, there was no door to a bathroom. It was just kind of a dead end. But at the end of the right hallway, if you walked all the way down it and then turned right,

you would see there was a door that led into the break room. So the break room and the kitchen were kind of oriented in the same position at either ends of each hallway. And so the two women go inside the store with Brittany in the front. They get inside. Jaina flips on the lights and they walk across that square main shopping area. They go past the cash registers into that employee only hallway. They go straight down.

They turn right. They make their way down the right hallway and then they open the door to the break room, and they go inside. Brittany very quickly found her wallet. It was on the table. She grabbed it. And so after she had her wallet, she just left the break room and began walking back out towards the main shopping area and the front door. Jaina was only a couple of seconds behind her. She grabbed her laptop, and then she left the break room. She walked back down the hallway, and as she turned back into the main shopping area, she kind of had her head down. She was fiddling with her laptop and her phone,

but even though she wasn't looking up, just looking down, she could tell right in front of her, Brittany had come to a full stop in the middle of the main shopping area. And so as soon as she saw that, she stopped what she was doing and she looked up and immediately she could see why Brittany had come to a stop. There were now two men wearing all black with black ski masks on that were standing between them and the front door. The following morning, the Lululemon employee who was supposed to come in that morning and open the store and work that day, she turns onto the street that the shop is on and she begins walking towards the front door. It's a bright, beautiful, sunny morning. There are lots of people out going about their daily routines. And so this employee, she walks right up to the front door of the Lululemon. She's not really looking into the store. She's kind of got her head down and she fishes in her pocket. She

pulls out her key that opens the front door. She slots it into the lock and she turns it to unlock it. And right away, she feels no resistance. The door was already unlocked. And so this really gets her attention and she looks up, but there's a glare on the glass from the sunlight, so she can't see inside. And so she just pulls the key out of the lock and then she pushes open the door and she takes a very tentative step inside. And right away, she sees the entire store is destroyed. There are shelves knocked over, there's clothing everywhere, it's a complete mess. And before she can even process what she's seeing, she hears what sounds like moaning coming from the back of the store, basically back in those

hallways. And so this employee is terrified and instead of going in to investigate, she just turns around and leaves the store and immediately calls 911. And as she's on the phone with police, this man who just happened to be walking by at this moment, he saw her and saw how visibly upset she was. And so he just stood next to her and waited for her to get off the phone with the police. And then when she was, he asked her,

you know, what's going on? And she would explain that the door wasn't locked, the store is a complete disaster and I heard moaning inside and I'm too scared to go in. And so the man says, hey, I'm going to go in there and take a look around, because I'm worried there could be someone who's hurt, who needs our help right now, before the police even get here. And so this man walks through the front door of the Lululemon, and right away, as soon as he steps in, he steps on broken glass, and he looks up, and the store is completely destroyed everything's knocked over and he immediately hears the moaning coming from the back of the store and so he very carefully starts walking straight ahead through the store stepping

over shelves that have been knocked down and trying hard not to destroy any merchandise that's on the ground and when he reaches the back of the store basically the entrance to this employee hallway that goes straight back he hears the mo, but he can't really tell which hallway it's coming from. And so he just calls out like, hey, you know, who's back there? Do you need my help? But there was no reaction. And so he begins walking forward and then he stops. He realizes the ground is slick. And so he looks down and he sees there's a very obvious blood trail from where he is standing straight back down this employee hallway. And the blood trail appears to turn right and kind of disappears out of sight down that right hallway. I'm Peter Frankopan.

And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time, somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university,

the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across

is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of The Strange, Dark and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark, and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge, and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre,

unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. And so the man is terrified. He turns around and he looks towards the front of the store, kind of hoping that maybe the police or the paramedics would get there. But it's just the employee he had spoken to and she looks terrified. And so the man decides, you know, if there's someone hurt back here, I really need to go see what's wrong. And so very carefully, he begins walking down this initial hallway following the blood trail. And then he turns right into that right hallway, and he looks, and he can't believe what he is seeing. It looks like the entire right stretch of hallway

was covered in blood. I mean, the floors, the walls, the ceilings, everything. There is blood everywhere. However, there's no person. It looks like all this blood kind of turns right and goes into the door at the end of the right hallway, the break room. And so this man knows, okay, obviously someone is very badly hurt. And whoever is moaning is almost certainly in that break room. And so he calls out again to see if this person will call back to him, but it's silent. And so he walks down this right hallway that's soaked in blood. And he gets to the end and he turns right and he grabs the handle of the break room door.

He turns the handle and he pushes the door open. And at first he couldn't quite open it. There was something blocking the door from opening. But finally he kind of muscles it open enough that he can look inside. And he realizes what was blocking the door. There was a young woman lying face down on the ground and her legs had been blocking the door.

And this woman was Jaina. And this man, who was not medically trained, immediately understood this woman is deceased. The injuries she has sustained are so bad, there is absolutely no way she is alive. And he immediately thought, she also has likely been dead for some time. This does not look like it just happened. And so he's thinking, who's moaning? Where's the moaning coming from? Is there somebody else in this room?

And so he pushes and kind of moves her body out of the way and sticks his head into the break room and he scans around, but there's no one else in there. But as he's looking around, he hears the moaning again and he realizes it's coming from the other side of the hallway, at the end of the left hallway. And so he shuts the break room door, and he walks back up the hallway to the T intersection. And instead of turning and walking into the main shop,

he continues down the left hallway. And he goes all the way down until he's standing in front of the door that leads into the bathroom, and to his left is the door that leads to that kitchen. And as he's standing there, he just kind of yells out, hey, whoever's in here, you know, say something. Because he doesn't know what door they're in. And he hears the moaning and it's coming from the door right in front of him, the bathroom door. And so he opens the bathroom door and immediately he's struck by all the blood all over the bathroom. And lying on her back on the ground is another young woman. It was

Brittany. Her hands were zip tied together and attached to a pipe on the side of the room and she was covered in blood. There were obvious stab wounds and slash marks and bruises all over her and at first this man assumed she must be deceased and there must be a third person in this bathroom who's doing the moaning. But then he was startled when Brittany made this low guttural moaning sound, almost like the sound of an animal dying. And he realized that was the moaning he was hearing. It was Brittany. At that moment, the police had arrived. They'd rushed inside. They grabbed this man and escorted him out. They secured the scene and then the paramedics came in and they would confirm that unfortunately

Jaina was deceased. And then when they went went to Brittany they found that she was still clinging to life and so they put her up onto a stretcher and they began wheeling her out and as she was being brought out of the store the paramedics began trying to talk to her and Brittany amazingly was able to say a few words. The police who are also on the, they see this and they're concerned that, you know, she might pass away from her injuries before they get to talk to her. And so sensing she was able to talk, they kind of rushed over as she's being loaded into the ambulance out front. And they would say, hey, do you remember anything about what happened to you and the other woman who was in there? And Brittany was able to tell them that the night before there had been these two men who were wearing all black.

They had ski masks on, so they didn't know what they looked like. And they had robbed the store and then they had sexually assaulted both of the women. But Jaina had apparently fought back so fiercely that they had killed her before they left. And so after she tells police this, the ambulance gets shut up and she's taken away to the hospital. And then the police immediately go into the Lululemon store to get the security footage from inside the shop to see if they can get some footage of the attack and see what happened. But unfortunately, the only camera this store had was on the exterior of the back of the building, just kind of looking out at a parking lot.

There were no cameras looking in the store or at the front of the store. You have to remember Bethesda, where the store was located, was considered to be extremely safe, very low crime neighborhood. And so more than likely, that was why the store did not have a security system. And so very frustrated, the police pulled up the only footage they could, which was this exterior camera. And sure enough, the night before, around midnight, the camera picked up two men wearing all black with their hoods up running away from the store. And so there was really no way to identify who they were. All they could tell was, you know, one was fairly tall. But nonetheless, they pulled the footage and they gave it to the media. And then that day and into the night, the local news played this footage on repeat, asking people in the area to

come forward if they know who these two guys are. But by the next day, when the media and the police investigation had turned up nothing on these two guys, the police added a $150,000 reward for any information about who these two guys were. But after 48 hours since the discovery of this crime, still no one had come forward with any meaningful information about who these guys were. But after 48 hours since the discovery of this crime, still no one had come forward with any meaningful information about who these guys were, and so the police were kind of at a dead end. And so some of the detectives decided to go back to the Lululemon shop to walk the crime scene again to see if maybe something was missed in the initial search. And so the police, they come back to the shop, and it's being guarded 24-7 by police at this point. There's yellow crime scene tape outside blocking people off.

And so the detectives arrive, they go underneath the yellow tape, they go past the security, they go inside, and then one of the detectives just walks straight to the back of the store and just kind of stands there near the registers looking around. And as he was looking around, he began looking at all of the bloody footprints that were on the ground. Now, by this point, all of the prints had been accounted for except for one set. There was a men's size 14 shoe print that had been spotted in several locations

in the store, and it was just kind of assumed that it belonged to one of the killers. The thing about this print was that the treads of the shoe were fairly unique. They had a distinctive and fairly easy to recognize pattern to them. The police knew about the shoe print, but to be honest, they hadn't given it much thought because they felt like the print only seemed to confirm that a relatively tall man had been involved in this crime. But as this one detective stood in the back of the store and was just kind of looking around, he noticed a bin of shoes on the ground in the store. These shoes were there for shoppers to put them on when they were getting their pants hemmed and fitted to them. These shoes were not for sale. They were just kind of random shoes that were there effectively as props to make

sure people's clothes fit properly. And the detective noticed one of the shoes at the top of the pile in this bin appeared to be a large men's shoe. And so purely out of curiosity, he reached down and he flipped the shoe over to look at the treads. And to his shock, they were an exact match to the unique treads on the size 14 bloody print. But the shoes he was holding were clean. There was no blood on them. So the detectives, they kind of all converge on the shoe and they're thinking to themselves, you know, did the attackers come in barefoot and perpetrate this attack with store shoes

on and then afterwards clean them and leave them behind? Or is it just a crazy coincidence that one of the attackers happened to have the exact same style shoe and size as the one in this bin? They had no idea, but they felt like this was significant and they needed to get to the bottom of why this kind of random shoe in the store matched this print. And they thought the only person who might have more information about what the killer's shoes looked like would be Brittany. And so at this point, Brittany was still in very rough shape, but she had stabilized to the point where the police felt comfortable speaking to her.

And so they paid her a visit, and they asked her if she could remember anything about her attacker's feet. Did they wear shoes? And if so, what color were they? You know, anything she could remember at this point would be helpful. But Brittany would say, no, I'm sorry, I don't remember their feet at all. But there was something about the way she just very quickly dismissed the shoes that tipped the police off that maybe Brittany could be hiding something. But the police didn't press her because they knew she had just been in this horrific attack and they also didn't really have a good sense of what her normal behavior looked like. So they just thanked her and they left. They were planning to speak to her again the following day, but she actually got in touch with them first and offered to have a meeting to go over what happened. And from the sound of

her voice, it just sounded like she was just eager to help them. And so the police, they sat down with Brittany again and they began talking about what happened and kind of eager to help them. And so the police, they sat down with Brittany again, and they began talking about what happened and kind of going over the details. And they asked her again about the shoes. And again, she said she just didn't know. And then at some point in this second discussion they're having, Brittany kind of offhandedly mentioned something that she believes is just a small detail. But that small detail would ultimately be the thing that would lead police to figure out what actually happened on the night jaina was killed this is what happened back on march 11 2011 so the night of the attack jaina and brittany were working in the store it was a normal shift everything was fine and then at closing time they did their duties they walked outside jaina

locked the front door and then they said their goodby time, they did their duties. They walked outside. Jaina locked the front door. And then they said their goodbyes. And they went their separate ways. Jaina drove off in her car. And Brittany began walking to the metro train station. But Brittany realized she had left her wallet in the break room. And so she called Jaina. And Jaina would tell Brittany that it was no big deal because she had left her laptop in the break room.

Back at the front of the store, Jana double parked her car out on the street and then she and brittany headed inside the shop brittany would lead the way to the break room at the end of the hallway on the right and after she got her wallet brittany would turn around and leave the break room ahead of jana to make her way back out to the main shopping area and so jana was only a few seconds behind brittany she was just getting her laptop and then when she had it she left the break room she walked down the hallway and she turned and began walking into the main shopping area as well. And she had her head down. She was just kind of fiddling with her phone and her laptop. But at some point she realized, even without looking up, that Brittany

had come to a full stop in the middle of the shopping area. So Jaina looks up and there were not two men wearing all black with black ski masks blocking their way to the front door. In fact, there were no men involved in what happened next at all. The two men that had been seen on the security camera in the back of the building were just two cooks who happened to be hustling by the night of the attack and who happened to be wearing all black. It was just a coincidence. But there was someone standing in the store blocking Jaina from leaving. It was Brittany.

Brittany was staring at Jaina and in her hand was a foot-long square metal rod. It was one of the pieces of metal that normally was anchored into the walls of the store to hold up merchandise. Jaina is so caught off guard by this, she has no idea what the issue is, and so she says to Brittany, you know, hey, calm down, we can talk about this. But Brittany was

not trying to talk to Jaina. Brittany was trying to silence Jaina, and she had lied about her wallet to lure Jaina back to the store. This was a setup. Earlier that night, during their shift together, Jaina had caught Brittany stuffing a pair of yoga pants into her bag and had confronted her about it. And it's believed Brittany was worried Jaina was going to tell their boss about it the next day and that Brittany would be fired because of it. And then once again, her life would be derailed and she would be humiliated and Brittany just couldn't have that.

And so as Jaina slowly began to back up into the hallway with her hands up trying to calm Brittany down, Brittany began to advance on her. And as soon as she did, Jaina screamed and turned and ran down that employee hallway. She turned right and bolted down the hallway towards the break room. She grabbed the break room door

and she was trying to get it open, but before she could, Brittany had caught up to her and she smashed her over the head with the pipe. Immediately, Jaina turned around, she put her hands up over her head to protect herself, and she begged Brittany not to hit her again, but Brittany wasn't listening. Brittany just wound up and smashed her across the arms with the pipe. Jaina began screaming out and pleading with her to stop, but Brittany just kept on going. And for the next several minutes, Jaina just stood at the end kept on going. And for the next several minutes, Jaina just stood at the end of this hallway in front of the break room door,

just trying desperately to protect herself with her hands. But Brittany was so strong and fast, and she kept striking her on her head and on the sides and anywhere else she could land a blow. The blood spatter on the walls of the end of that right hallway would later reveal that Jaina had gradually moved from a standing position down to the fetal position, meaning Brittany had literally beat her until she collapsed on the ground. And when Jaina hit the ground,

she must have known she was trapped. There was no escape route for her, and she was so badly wounded that even if there was a way to go, Brittany was gonna catch up to her and Brittany was gonna to stop her. And so Jaina just began quietly begging for her life. But Brittany had other plans for her.

At the end of that right hallway that they were both in, Brittany had noticed a red toolbox was on the ground in the corner. And so around the time Jaina had fallen to the ground and was begging for her life, Brittany dropped the metal pipe and she casually opened the toolbox, revealing screwdrivers, nails, wrenches, hammers, all sorts of tools. And one by one, Brittany began reaching into this toolbox, taking out a tool and then smashing, cutting, slashing and beating Jaina with it. It would take Brittany roughly 10 minutes to cycle through every single tool

in that toolbox. But shockingly, despite being dealt 330 significant wounds, Jaina was still alive and she was still pleading for her life. Frustrated, Brittany stood up, she chucked the tools on the ground, she turned around and she walked down the hallway all the way to the kitchen at the other end of that left hallway. She went inside and she grabbed a large knife. Then she marched back into the hallway. She went straight down all the way to Jaina. Jaina is still begging for her life and Brittany just reaches down. She grabs her hair with her left hand and pulls her head forward towards her. Then she takes the knife with her right hand. She raises it up and she brings it smashing down into the back of Jaina's skull. The knife would pierce her skull, it would pierce her brain, and that would be the killing blow.

Once Jaina was deceased, Brittany simply got to work staging the store to look like a robbery gone wrong. The first thing she did was drag Jaina's body out of the hallway and into the break room. And then once the door was shut, she headed out to the front of the store and just walked straight outside and climbed into Jaina's car that was still double parked outside. And she drove that around the block to a parking lot. And then when she got back inside of the shop, she went to that bin of shoes used for fitting pants. And she took out the size 14 men's shoe she put them on her feet and then she began walking around in the pool of blood underneath jana in the right hallway and began tracking the bloody prints all over the store to make it appear like a man was involved

in the attack and then after cleaning the shoes she ransacked the store and then she grabbed a knife and a screwdriver and she headed into the bathroom where she repeatedly stabbed and slashed herself before tying her hands and her feet with zip ties. At 8 a.m. the next morning, she was discovered. The seemingly small piece of information that Brittany kind of accidentally gave to police during that second meeting, this piece of information that kind of broke the case, police during that second meeting, this piece of information that kind of broke the case, that came when the police asked her if she knew what kind of car Jaina drove or if she'd ever been inside of Jaina's car. And Brittany would say, no, I don't know what it looks like and I've never been inside of it. But a couple of days later, when Jaina's car would be found and the police would search it, they would find Britney's hair and DNA all over it

so they knew Britney had been lying to them. And so this is what ultimately led to Britney's arrest and she would later be convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please deliver a box of Girl Scout cookies to the five-star review button, but before you hand them over, eat them all and replace them with stale saltines. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin Podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Google, Amazon, and everywhere else you get your podcasts. This podcast airs every Monday and Thursday morning, but in the meantime, you can always watch one of the hundreds of stories I have posted on my YouTube channel,

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In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering

every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.